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Ronan

S he didn’t come home last night.

It’s early and the bed’s empty. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I feel like I am. I’m conflicted about my feelings. There’s a part of me that just wants to drop it, but the other is angry with her for lying and avoiding me. Have we not sat and talked about our trauma together? I’ve never laid everything, including myself, so bare for anyone. All I ever asked was her to be honest, how fucking hard is that?

You didn’t come home

After texting her, I force myself up and spend the next several hours doing absolutely nothing of value. From cleaning my bike, to the garage, it doesn’t do anything to help clear my head. I just need her to come home, and we can talk about it.

Jesus Christ, if she tells me she started the fire for the insurance money, does she really think I’ll look at her any differently? I’ll scold her for it, sure, but only because it’s not like her mother couldn’t afford to give her money.

She could tell me she blew up an entire apartment complex just to get out of a lease and I’d still be on her side. So, why the fuck is she being so secretive? I’ll even get Ken to help her if her mom isn’t able to get her out of it. I will take care of her, and I just wish she’d do me the decency to allow me to try.

I’ve come to love her, and I know it to be true because all I imagine is her. Waking up to her and only her. To please only her. Feed only her.

Calista is all I think about, and I truly am an obsessed man for her .

I’m not mad

Baby girl, don’t ignore me. You lied and I know you did

Sitting on the couch in the garage, I’m finishing off a turkey and cheese sandwich, nothing but the sounds of the lake and birds echoing around me.

It’s fine, but I’m still going to punish you for it

Can you please call me

Gripping the phone, I’m preparing to throw it out as far as possible in the hopes it hits the lake, when it rings.

Unfortunately, it isn’t Cal, but instead Eamon.

I take a deep breath and answer it on the first ring.

“Hey.” I put my head back against the couch and look up into the rafters.

“Hey, Ro. How’re you?”

“Could be better.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, not really in the mood to be having a conversation with my brother right now. “What do you want?”

He sighs. “Can we have lunch? I want to talk…”

I shake my head but don’t say anything. What I wouldn’t have given to have had my brother there for me when I got out of prison the first time. Part of me wonders—if I had reached out to him then, would it have made a difference for me?

I’d seen the life he had, and I think a small part of me was afraid of fucking it up for him, because that’s exactly what I was: a fuck up.

“After you were convicted…” he continues through my silence. “I tried to come see you, but you denied me visitation. No one was allowed to see you but Mom, even if Dad forbid it. Why?”

I tut. “Absolutely nothing to tell you, or anyone.”

“You could have tried to convince me… I would have fought for you if only I—”

“Eamon,” I say through a heavy sigh. “I sat up there and cried, telling everyone what happened… only to be told that lying in a court of law would get me more time. If…” I grind my teeth together. “If I had been your sister you wouldn’t have hesitated to believe a fucking word out of my mouth. No one would have.”

“That isn’t true.”

“No? Are you sure? Because I wasn’t even given a second of thought. I was a liar immediately. It didn’t matter I told them he had three moles right on his left thigh, inches from his cock . Where no child should ever see… I was Ronan the liar. The sick boy with mental health issues.”

I can hear him taking a shaky breath before he says, “I am so fucking sorry I wasn’t there for you.” The tears I hoped to see in person translate through his tone. “That day you called me before trying to kill yourself, it fucked me up. I hated you for it, but it was just a projection of my own self-loathing. I—”

Leaning forward, I place my face into my hand, the phone in the other shaking as I fight to keep it at my ear.

“I still have the voicemail and listen to it every year. It reminds me how badly I…” He roughly clears his throat before taking another unstable intake of air. “I failed you. We all did.”

“You did…” I whisper while dragging my hand across my eyes.

“I love you, Ronan. I should have been the brother you deserved.”

A moment of silence falls, and not even our breathing captures in the phone. I don’t know if I still love my brother, but that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of it.

“I know you do,” I finally say after several minutes pass. “We are having a barbecue this weekend. You should come.”

“Oh. Who will be there?”

“My friends who I’d call family, and Cal.”

“Did she invite her mom?”

“No, she didn’t. I had hoped by this time you would’ve taken care of that…”

He groans. “I actually asked to talk with her about that a few days ago.”

My brows pinch. “Do you never go home?” The fluctuation in my tone is patronizing.

“I haven’t been back in about a week. We got into an argument, and when I called to apologize, she told me to stay away while she cooled off.”

I hum. “Are you still going to get the divorce?” I know they’ve been together for a while, and I should feel bad about forcing this, but I don’t.

“She’s going to fight it…” That isn’t a no, and something tells me he won’t outwardly say ‘yes I’m going to get a divorce’. I’ll just be a fucking pest about it.

“Saturday, you can come over after two.”

My phone beeps, and I quickly look at it, hoping that it’s Cal. Unfortunately, once again , it isn’t. Instead, it’s Ken.

“I need to go.”

“Alright, thanks, Ro. I’ll see you Saturday.”

“See ya.”

“Bye, Brother.”

I hang up our call and quickly answer Ken. “Hey.” I stand and step outside, feeling the cool breeze hit me immediately. I’m going to say it’s probably going to be too cold to go swimming, but if the boys suffer for Mia, they can do as they please.

“Hey, you free?” Alright, getting right to the point.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“You know that guy, Michael Horn, the one you had me looking into.”

I sigh, honestly, I had completely forgotten about him. I’ve been so consumed by my time here with Cal, I dismissed the fucking asshole who hurt her. “What about him?” Finding him isn’t the hard part, it’s taking care of him that is.

I can’t go back.

“Well… before we go into that, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Mhmm.” I stare down the road, hoping to hear or see Cal’s car driving up the dirt path.

“You said that the guy you killed in that bar, something Cheshire, right?”

A sickening feeling grips at my stomach. “Yeah. Gregory Cheshire, brother to that crazy bitch Samantha.”

“Mr. Horn is employed by the Serrano’s.”

“Okay? We knew that, that’s—”

“He first was employed to the family prior... Ronan, that family was the Cheshire’s. Samantha Cheshire married Armando Serrano.”

A cold chill rolls down my side. “Where are you right now?” I ask him.

“Home.”

I look at the lake, my heart racing frantically. “You know… I always thought I’d be the one killing myself—”

“Ronan!” His shout is loud.

“That I’d drink myself to my grave.” I can hear Ken screaming, but his words don’t register to me. All of her lies. How had I not even questioned anything with her. How had I been so fucking blind? “Now things are becoming clearer.”

Her being so hardheaded on staying with a stranger.

That initial night we met, how her reaction to me being in the cabin was more of fear, not surprise.

The house fire coincidentally happening three days before I was released.

My file just showing up on her mother’s desk.

Why she wouldn’t tell me more when I pressed about the Serrano’s.

The cameras.

My mind is racing, because there is absolutely no way that Calista was out here with me to set me up.

“Ronan, answer me you fucking twat!”

“Listen to me,” I say with an angry bark behind my words. “Do exactly what I say, and in the end, you make sure that you take care of her.”

“What do you mean?”

I groan.

“Ro—”

“Ken, you’ll do exactly as I command of you. Don’t ask questions.” My gaze drifts to my hand which is shaking. “Cal’s in trouble, and it’s going to likely cost me my life, so listen carefully.”

Damn her for not telling me what was going on.

Damn her for making me fall in love with her.

Damn them for once again reminding me my happiness will always be short lived.